"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 122 - Murder House" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

MURDER HOUSE
by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," March 15, 1937.

Like a shell-torn battleground, the peace and quiet of a countryside give
way to criminal warfare when The Shadow stalks through byways seeking the
ruler
of the Murder House.


CHAPTER I

CROOKS PREPARE

THE old sign post read: "MIDVALE, 3 MILES."
Kip Farrick grinned when he saw it. This was the crossing that he wanted.
An isolated meeting place of old dirt roads, where few cars traveled. Kip,
though, had been here before, in the same coupe that he was driving today.
The trip meant something, this time. Kip's ratty face showed a gleam as
he
looked toward the man who rode with him. He wanted to see if Nick Shoyden's
stolid, darkish features could lose their poker-faced expression and betray a
sign of real interest.
"Is this the corner, Kip?"
Nick's question was rasped in businesslike fashion. His blackish eyes
seemed snappy when they saw Kip's grinning lips.
"Sure!" returned the rattish driver. "We only got a half a mile to go,
toward Midvale. I clocked it, Nick - a couple times."
"Then what are we waiting for? Get going."
Kip turned to the left. He drove a quarter mile, squinting while the
sunlight glittered from the radiator cap. As the coupe passed a pair of wheel
tracks that led off to the right, Nick demanded:
"Where does that go to?"
"A road to the house," replied Kip. "The old farm covers more'n two
hundred acres. I found that out in Midvale, Nick."
Nick made no reply. He was watching the speedometer. It clocked off half
a
mile. Kip was prompt with the brakes; they screeched, as the coupe stopped
amid
a cloud of dust. Kip pointed to a jagged road that looked like the path of a
dry stream. The road wound downward, to the left.
"There she is," announced Kip, "an' I'll bet you a century against a fin
that we'll find old Brockbright down by the creek. Every Tuesday and Friday -"
"I know the rest," snapped Nick. "How do we get down to that patch of
woods without Brockbright seeing us?"
In answer, Kip started the coupe. He drove thirty yards and turned off
the
road into a patch of open ground that stood unfenced. Pulling the car beneath
a